


Spectrum

by Rena



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rena/pseuds/Rena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not easy to find out where Derek spends his time when he’s not woefully staring at his decrepit childhood home or aggressively training his betas in holes in the ground that come with questionable furniture or lurking in shadows around Beacon Hills High School.</p>
<p>AKA The one where Stiles goes snooping around in Derek's apartment, has an epiphany and takes his first tentaive step down the friendship road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spectrum

**_Spectrum_ **

**_._ **

****

****

It turns out that Derek does not, in fact, live in the abandoned subway car. That is equally amounts surprising and reassuring. Stiles swears he could’ve caught tetanus from only thinking about living in the safety and health hazards that are the underground station and the skeleton of the Hale house.

It’s not easy to find out where Derek spends his time when he’s not woefully staring at his decrepit childhood home or aggressively training his betas in holes in the ground that come with questionable furniture or lurking in shadows around Beacon Hills High School, but being the Sheriff’s son coupled with an insatiable curiosity comes with perks, namely the willingness to break into the station to acquire the necessary information and the certainty that he won’t be caught. He’d feel bad about it, but Derek’s not exactly an easy man to get a hold of when he doesn’t want to be found and well, he’s broken one too many laws already to be bothered all that much by it. When you’ve helped to light someone on fire everything else pretty much seems like a peccadillo. He’s always thought that the end justifies the means.

The apartment Derek’s renting is actually in a pretty nice part of the town; it’s quiet and at the outskirts, so it’s not hugely popular, but it’s not in the middle of the most ill-reputed quarter like Stiles had secretly expected it to be. Derek isn’t home although it’s still freakishly early, but he talks the landlady into letting him into the flat by convincing her he’s Derek’s younger cousin.

“It’s so nice of you to come round,” Mrs. Smith says as they climb the stairs. “Derek doesn’t get a lot of visitors. It’s such a shame,” she goes on, “he’s such a nice young man.”

Stiles bites his tongue to force down the hysterical laughter bubbling up his throat. There are a lot of words he could use to describe Derek, but ‘nice’ isn’t one of them. Obviously, the woman doesn’t know that there’s a former serial killer suspect living under her roof, although how she managed to miss that, Stiles has no clue. It was all over the news. The town had been _paved_ with wanted posters.

“He’s not big on people,” Stiles tells her.

“What ever are you talking about?” she asks, disbelieving. “”He is the most pleasant and helpful tenant I’ve had in years. Oh, thank him for bringing me eggs yesterday, will you? I haven’t had the chance to tell him.”

Stiles wants to ask if they’re talking about the same person, but sure enough, the name above the door bell says _Hale_ in Derek’s ridiculously neat and elegant script and Mrs. Smith has pushed open the door and is halfway down the staircase before his mind moves past the part where Derek Hale went grocery shopping for his elderly landlady. Derek and sociability are two entities that he didn’t know could be combined. Like in Doctor Who, two parts of time and space that should never have touched and created a crack in the universe. From what he’s seen so far Derek either communicates with threats and defensive demeanour or horribly fake smiles that make your stomach hurt just looking at them. He’s never seen Derek being _nice_.

Granted, he hasn’t spent much time with the guy so maybe he’s not the best judge, but Derek Hale with a carton of eggs in his hand is a picture that refuses to make itself comfortable in his brain.

Stiles shakes his head at the ridiculous mental image of Derek in a pink striped apron and steps inside.

The apartment is...not what Stiles expected. It doesn’t look like the typical flat of a mid-twenties bachelor: no dishes piled up in the sink waiting to develop an independent existence and grow legs, no dirty, bloodied clothes strewn across the floor.  But then again, Derek’s a conundrum and a mystery, driving around in a fancy car and quite obviously using tons of hair product while occasionally squatting in shitholes, so maybe Stiles was wrong expecting anything at all.

Looking around, Stiles finds that the flat sort of fits Derek. It’s small and, well, old, most of the furniture visibly worn out, but it’s clean and suffused with light, and the smell of old leather and warm wood mixed with a hint of vanilla makes it feel surprisingly homey despite the lack of bells and whistles and decoration. It’s plain and mostly functional and quiet in a way that makes the tension flood out of your body, and he figures that a quality like this is somewhat vital for a man (wolf) with serious anger management issues.

Stiles should know better than to snoop – let’s face it, Derek will be pissed that he’s invading his territory again – but now that he’s here the urge is irresistible. He pokes around the living room for a bit without any ground-breaking discoveries aside from the knowledge that Derek does in fact own a television and a DVD player and then opens some of the kitchen cabinets. They’re not particularly well-stocked and the fridge is nearly empty as well, but he’s impressed when he doesn’t find loads of pizza and lasagne and other equally greasy fast food in the freezer but frozen vegetables, salmon and some chicken.

Huh. Looks like Derek is working hard to keep that insanely hot body of his and taking care of his health. Which is stupid considering he throws himself into harm’s way on a nearly daily basis. If he had a death wish, Stiles might tell him that if he wanted to start, like, respecting his own existence or something, he’d better start working at that before moving on to the topic of nutrition, because Derek clearly has his priorities completely wrong , but Stiles likes his head attached to his neck, thank you very much.

Or maybe not so much, because only seconds later, Stiles decides to venture into the bedroom. Which he’s sure Derek will not be happy about if he finds out. Whatever. Stiles will insist that’s payback for that time when Derek snuck into his room and scared the crap out of Stiles before demanding accommodation.

The bedroom contains nothing but a queen sized bed, a nightstand and a small walk-in closet that’s filled with clothes folded so neatly that Stiles begins to suspect Derek has some kind OCD. Also, an astonishing number of Henley shirts. He probably burns through them with his lifestyle, which is most likely the reason Derek hasn’t returned the shirt Stiles borrowed him yet. Although it is possible that Derek simply didn’t want to see Stiles more often than absolutely necessary and conveniently forgot about it.

Stiles turns around to examine the stack of books on the nightstand. Some of them are on engineering, which, what the hell, and the others are old and leather-bound and obviously on supernatural lore and falling apart. He picks one up and idly thumbs through it when something slips out from between the pages and falls to the floor. He bends down to pick it up. It’s a photograph. _December 2010_ , it says on the back, in a handwriting that is big and sloppy and definitely not Derek’s. And Stiles _knows_ he shouldn’t look, but he can’t help it. Curiosity is like a disease, having invaded his systems and clinging to him like MRSA.

So he turns it around and sucks in a deep breath.

The photo shows Derek and a young woman who’s slung her arms around him, her head thrown back and laughing whole-heartedly. Her face isn’t familiar per se, but Stiles recognises her. He’s seen her once before, although you can’t possibly compare the girl on the photo, who exudes vitality and warmth, with the pale and lifeless complexion he knows from when he and Scott dug up Laura Hale’s body.

His stomach does an uncomfortable flip. He’s never really thought of Laura Hale as a person with a life before. She was a corpse in the woods. Excitement. Then a means to prove Derek was a killer. And then...well. Stiles knows, has always known, that she was his sister, but he’s never stopped to contemplate what this means. He’s never thought of what and who she left behind but when he looks at Derek in the picture and the way he watches her it hits him in the face and makes him want to puke his guts out. Laura looks happy and carefree and Derek...well, he doesn’t exactly look _happy_ (Stiles doesn’t think Derek can be one hundred percent happy; there’s always an edge of sadness and brokenness lingering around him no matter how much he tries to hide it) but he’s smiling, genuinely smiling and his eyes are crinkling and he seems content and more relaxed than Stiles has ever seen him.

Stiles stares at the picture for a long time, maybe for the first time realising how much Derek has lost. He thinks that it’s kind of amazing that he hasn’t completely fallen off the wagon and gone postal like Peter.

He’s having a small epiphany.

The thing is, he doesn’t really like Derek. Derek’s got some impressive snark and has saved Stiles and Scott’s asses more than once, but he can also be kind of an asshole. So yeah, Stiles isn’t his biggest fan, and he’s pretty sure he’s not on the top of the list of Derek’s Favourite Persons either, but.

But.

They don’t actually know jack squat about each other. Stiles stares at the picture of Derek shortly before he returned to Beacon Hills and received the latest set of blows to his life and general happiness and thinks about the sides of Derek he’s never seen, the young man pouring over books for college and frowning in concentration at complicated designs in the engineering manual, the guy who stops at the supermarket to bring his landlady a carton of eggs, drinks whole milk, apparently obsesses over DC and Marvel and almost obsessively keeps his apartment neat and tidy.

He thinks that, had circumstances been different, he might’ve liked Derek.

The door falls shut with a bang and Stiles jumps about three feet in the air. “Holy shit,” he curses.

“Stiles,” Derek says levelly. “Is there a reason why you’re standing in my bedroom?”

“Uh,” Stiles says intelligently. He doesn’t miss the way Derek’s lips turn to a small line when he sees what Stiles is holding. He quickly puts the photograph down. Not that it will make the situation any less awkward, or Derek any less angry. Although, come to think of it, the werewolf only looks slightly constipated and rigid, not homicidal. Maybe it’s the Walmart bags that make him seem more placable. “Mrs. Smith let me in.”

“Yes, I’ve heard, _cousin_. That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I had a question. About some wolf-y stuff that Scott wanted answers to but was too chicken to ask himself.” He’s totally had a question. A legitimate reason for showing up at Derek’s flat.

He just doesn’t remember.

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Yes?” he prompts.

“Uh,” Stiles makes and follows Derek into the kitchen where he starts unpacking his groceries once it becomes apparent that he won’t get asked anything anytime soon. Stiles digging through his brain, but all logical thought process short-circuits when he watches what Derek pulls out of the bag. “Dude,” he says. “Is that celery? And spinach?”

Stiles is confronted with mildly annoyed eyebrows again. “Please go ahead and make a running commentary on my nutrition, it’s what I’ve always wanted from life,” Derek deadpans.

“I’m not judging. My heart is weeping with joy.”

Derek snorts, half exasperated, half amused. “You are ridiculous.”

“Your face is ridiculous,” Stiles retorts indignantly. It’s a childish remark, but absolutely satisfactory. “I’m sorry,” he says after a moment of silence.

Derek makes a questioning noise, low in his throat.

“For snooping around,” Stiles specifies. “I shouldn’t have, it’s just, I was taken by surprise by...this, everything, and I was just-“ he falters.

“Morbidly curious?” Derek offers matter-of-factly, fixing Stiles with an inscrutable look. “Yeah, I’m starting to realise that’s a thing with you.”

“Yeah.” Stiles rubs his hands over his hair. Blinks, once, twice. “You eat Skittles,” he says, incredulous. “This is so weird.”

Derek sighs. “I’m not a machine, Stiles, or a robot or some non-sentient being, or whatever else you thought. I’m a person. I eat, I sleep, I take a piss when I need to. I’m not human and the Argents want to deny my kind basic rights, but aside from being part wolf I’m not different from any of you.”

“I know,” Stiles says quietly. “Well, I’m starting to see that, at least. I don’t know why I didn’t before.”

 “Because you didn’t bother looking.” He sounds frustrated, but not angry. A little bit resigned, maybe, and somehow that breaks Stiles’ heart a little, because giving up, giving in, doesn’t suit Derek, and he knows himself how shitty it is to be judged and labelled by people who don’t even know you.

“I’m looking now,” he says.

Derek’s eyes snap to his face, big and dark and a little puzzled, scrutinising him. Then he nods and takes a step to the side, making room for Stiles at the kitchen counter. “Well if you’re not going to leave anytime soon the least you can do is make yourself useful.”

Stiles contemplates this. “Do I get breakfast?” he asks.

“No, I’m going to let you starve while I wolf down my food to the sound of your grumbling stomach and enjoy the longing and desperate look on your face,” Derek says dryly.

“Nice,” Stiles grins and allows himself to relax. “Also, excellent pun.”

“Get the frying pan, Stiles. I’m sure you know where to find it.”

“Do I get to ask questions?”  

“Yes,” Derek says, then freezes. “If you ask me whether I jerk off in the shower every morning I’ll punch you,” he warns.  

“Noted. Although I want to point out-”

“Stiles.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll steer clear of your sexual exploits. For now.”

“I’m regretting this already. I should just throw you out.”

“Nah, you won’t.” Stiles says, and smiles. “You won’t.” 

 

 


End file.
